


Night Before

by Hope



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-05-13
Updated: 2002-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hope/pseuds/Hope
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frodo and Sam have a bit of a chat the night before the leave for the Havens (set during RotK).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Before

**Author's Note:**

> My muse is nocturnal, damn her. Damn her and early Monday morning starts. Written between 12.30 -2.30am Monday morning. Thanks to the beloved beta, Sheba.

"All packed and ready for tomorrow, then?"

Sam broke out of his reverie, blinking up at the figure in the doorway and leaning back from the softly crackling fire, the threadbare cushioning of the high-backed chair cradling his shoulder-blades. The memory of fire in his eyes made it seem as if Frodo was deep in shadow, but he soon adjusted enough to see the warm glow paint the other's features.

Sam nodded towards the pile of near-bursting packs by the door. "All ready to go, sir. We'll have an easy start - Easier than ones we've had before, if I may. Rosie's asleep already; she wants to get up to make us breakfast before we leave."

Frodo smiled a little, with a hint of something Sam couldn't define, and padded closer towards Sam and the fire, wrapping his hands tighter around the mug he held. The tight, fluid weave of the elven robe he wore - another remnant of the weeks spent in the Field of Cormallen - shone and glimmered as it caught the light of the flames.

"Shouldn't you be asleep as well?" Frodo asked, settling down into the carven rocking chair by the fire, the chair that Rosie usually sat in when she was nursing Elanor, crooning softly as she rocked in a slow, steady rhythm.

Sam shrugged, the movement extending as he suppressed a yawn. "I guess I should be," he said, staring into the fire. "But I've been thinkin' a fair bit, and I'm thinkin' still, so I thought I may as well sit up here by the fire rather than lying awake in bed, if you follow me."

"I do," Frodo murmured, drawing his legs up onto the chair. It creaked slightly but didn't move, and he stared into the fire, finger of his left hand absently stroking the gap in his right, meeting around the dusky stoneware of the mug. He looked up. "What have you been thinking about?"

"Well," Sam began, glancing back up at Frodo again. "By my reckoning, assuming that today is the twentieth of Halimath--"

"Almost the twenty-first," Frodo interrupted wryly, and the corner of Sam's mouth twisted up a little before he continued.

"-The twentieth of Halimath, it's near two years exactly since you and I and Master Pippin set out from Bag End on our way to Crickhollow."

"And beyond." murmured Frodo softly, his eyes glazed and unseeing as he stared into the flames.

"Indeed. And beyond," Sam amended. They sat in thoughtful silence for a while.

"Two years," Frodo finally spoke, his voice distant. "It doesn't seem like very long, does it? More like a lifetime."

"Perhaps, Mr Frodo, perhaps. But that's just because so much's happened since then. Or rather, so much has changed since then."

Frodo broke his stare, looking up at Sam with a slight frown. "Why Sam," he said softly. "I thought for you that so little had changed. Here you are in the Shire, taking care of my garden, marrying a beautiful young hobbit-lass and still listening to your old Gaffer's advice."

"Aye." And Sam smiled at this. "On the outside things are the same - or at least going as I would have expected. Except moving into Bag End, of course. I never would have imagined livin' up here with you." He gave Frodo a fond smile. "It's the changing on the _inside_ I'm talking about. It's almost as if I'm a different hobbit than I was this time two years ago."

"No," Frodo said, his voice suddenly harsh and loud. He paused for a moment then spoke again, his voice lowered slightly but not losing any of its intensity. "No, Sam, you're just the same - perhaps the least changed of us all. You're just the same. You didn't change - you never will." He shivered.

"Here now, are you cold, Mr Frodo sir? Come here and your Sam will keep you warm." He half-rose, reaching out a hand. Frodo looked up at him for a moment and bit his lip briefly before grasping Sam's hand and allowing himself to be drawn back into Sam's lap, abandoning the mug on the floor by Rosie's chair.

"There now," Sam murmured soothingly, wrapping his arms around the thin body and gently urging Frodo's head onto his shoulder. "Maybe I will never change, as you say. Maybe I am still the same hobbit, but I sure did a lot of growin' up in two years." He stroked the dark hair softly, but Frodo remained tense. "And you did a fair bit of growin' too."

Frodo shivered again. His voice was distant, empty. "I don't know, Sam," he said. "I'm old. I don't feel like I've grown." He bit his lip, as if pondering whether to continue. "I feel as if I've been . . . hollowed out. As if someone's scraped me out with a spoon, like you scrape your baked taters out of their skins for Ellie to eat."

Sam tightened his grip around Frodo's shoulders, brow furrowing. "I felt like that too, at first," he said finally, haltingly, as if he was unsure of his words, or just working them out as they emerged from his mouth. "When the quest was over, I mean. We'd been struggling and straining for so long, just to get there, and when it was all over I felt kind of empty-like." He paused, lifting a hand from Frodo for a moment to scratch his head, then continued slowly. "Like I had no purpose no more. It was all over, we were safe. I didn't have to think every second about if you were in danger, or if there was orcs around the next corner, or whether we'd have enough water to last us til the next stream."

Frodo curled an arm around Sam's waist, his skin cool even as Sam's radiated heat like the fire. Sam sighed heavily. "But that emptiness got filled up. Coming back to the Shire, coming back home . . . Marrying Rosie . . . And little Ellie . . ." He smiled again, and gave Frodo a brief squeeze. "That fills you up good and proper." He pressed his lips to the crown of Frodo's head, soft hair tickling his nose. "You'll get married one day. Have some little hobbit-lads and -lasses of your own."

Frodo shuddered again, wrapping another arm around Sam's middle and pressing his face into Sam's shoulder.

"Here now, what's wrong?" Sam said, his voice pitched higher in concern. He gripped Frodo's shoulders and pushed him back slightly to look into his face. His own heart felt like breaking when he saw the tears smeared across Frodo's cheekbones. "Why are you crying?"

"Sam . . ." sobbed Frodo, the sound coming up as if squeezed out of his chest with a crushing force. He closed his eyes. "I - I don't think I'm going to have . . . any children . . ." He wavered, his breath shuddering as it left his body.

Sam raised his hands, placing one on either side of Frodo's face, fingers cradling his ears even as his thumbs soothed the damp cheekbones. "Frodo, Frodo me dear," Sam murmured, near tears himself. "Why of course you're going to have children, if you want! There ain't nothin' wrong with you, is there?"

Frodo sobbed again, a wrenching sound that seemed to tear out of his chest, and then his mouth was pressed to Sam's, hot and demanding and tasting of salt and heartache, and it wasn't gentle, and Sam opened his mouth with a small sound as Frodo pushed into him, biting at his lips and pillaging with his tongue, their teeth clashing.

Frodo pulled away at last, suddenly as he began, gasping almost violently, and Sam came to realise - somewhat dizzily - that his arms were tight around Frodo's shoulders, crushing him, and Frodo, Frodo was gripping the front of Sam's shirt with white knuckles, and somehow his legs had moved and he was straddling Sam, the silken robe now hitched up around pale thighs.

"Sam . . ." sobbed Frodo breathlessly, "Sam!" And Sam hushed him - mindful of Rosie, for whom maternity had made a light sleeper - by pulling him in for another kiss, desperate to comfort, to soothe the pounding heart and gasping breath. He tried to make it more gentle, tender, but Frodo soon took control again, tilting his head this time and pressing in closer and arching, arching against Sam and Sam forgot everything he'd ever known as the world spun, tipping him towards the centre where Frodo's body pressed against his, where he could feel Frodo's insistent arousal rubbing at his own.

"Sam, Sam," Frodo panted between sloppy, painful kisses, his hands sliding down to fumble desperately with the buttons on Sam's breeches. Sam groaned at the feel of that touch, butterfly light but tormenting on his hyper-sensitive flesh through the fabric. He dropped his own hands lower to grip Frodo's thighs before sliding them up - as if it were the most natural path in the world - along flesh and under the fabric of the elven-robe, coarse in comparison to Frodo's skin - to finally grip Frodo's hips, the bones fitting into his palms as if they were made solely for that purpose.

Frodo was saying something, he came to realise, something other than _Sam, Sam_ and Sam struggled up through heady mists to listen once to that breathy, desperate voice.

"Sam . . ." Frodo gasped, as if he were drowning. "Fill me up, Sam . . ." Sam groaned again, and struggled not to buck as Frodo's slender fingers found him, drew him out of his breeches. Frodo's forehead pressed to his own, breath hot and fast between bruised lips, eyes huge and black and so close to Sam's. "Fill me up," Frodo whispered. "Make this emptiness go away."

Sam groaned again, closing his eyes as Frodo shifted slightly on him, then grunted, grunted at the heat and tightness that was almost unbearable as Frodo pressed down, down, letting out a long hiss of pain but not stopping. Sam's fingers bruised into his hips and Frodo's hands were claws gripping his upper arms. Frodo's head fell back, and finally he could press no further but started rocking, rocking instead, violent like his kisses, and he seemed almost to snarl at Sam until Sam groaned and pushed up against him. Frodo's head fell forward, and he caught Sam's mouth again, licked and bit it, tugging on his lower lip and biting his chin, not gently. Frodo wrapped his legs around Sam, locking his ankles at the back of the chair and locking their bodies closer, tighter, and the air was filled with the crackling of the fire and the sound of Frodo's panting breath as Sam moved his hands once more to skim across Frodo's collarbone, the elven fabric whispering across his flushed skin as it slid down his arms.

Sam moved forward, licking at the salty skin of Frodo's right shoulder before sucking violently in surprise at a particularly fierce thrust of Frodo's hips, and his hand dropped down to where the robe had parted and gripped Frodo firmly, marvelling at the heat even as the rest of Frodo's body seemed to be burning up. Frodo groaned, and Sam could feel the vibrations of it through his teeth on Frodo's collar bone. He dropped his head heavily on Sam's shoulder, face turned in to pant wetly on Sam's neck.

"Sam . . . Sam . . ." Frodo gasped, and it was the need in that voice, as much as the scent and taste of Frodo's skin and the clenching around him that sent him over the edge, thrusting up into him one last time as his vision burst into brilliance and he clenched his teeth in reflex against the cry that struggled to escape.

"Oh, Light!" gasped Frodo, and then he was hot and wet and writhing in Sam's arms, claws scrabbling for purchase against Sam's chest as he arched again, taut like a bowstring, then went limp and still.

Gradually Sam came back to himself, the feeling of a limp-and-trembling Frodo in his arms pulling him back to awareness, and he kissed Frodo's shoulder softly before reaching for the old blanket that was draped over the arm of the chair - to keep a reader's legs warm late at night - and wiping off his hand. Gently, he pulled the robe back over Frodo's shoulders, and firm around his waist, tying it with the silken belt of the same material, hiding the gleam of Arwen's pendant that lay on Frodo's breast like a blade. He shifted Frodo a little - his body was still limp, and not as heavy as it ought to have been - then buttoned up his own breeches. Frodo's breath was steady and deep against Sam's neck, and he could feel the flutter of eyelids against his still-sensitive skin.

"You'll feel better after Rivendell," Sam murmured softly, smoothing a hand over Frodo's brow. "Seeing old Bilbo again and listening to all that poetry and song will fill you up some, if nothing else will. Just you wait and see."

Frodo said nothing.


End file.
